Wellington Phoenix assistant coach Jonathan Gould offers no platitudes about finals football ahead of his team’s soccer A-League elimination semi-final clash against Newcastle on Sunday.

While Jets coach Branko Culina has been vocal in pre-match build-up about his team’s approach going into the game, Gould has been somewhat more pragmatic.

“Culina said they’re going to be free. He said `I’ll let them go out and enjoy themselves’, but I don’t read too much into that,” said Gould, who along with Luciano Trani is at the Phoenix helm until coach Ricki Herbert returns from All Whites duty in Mexico later this week.

“These games are about being mentally prepared and strong. To do that, you have to have good shape, possession and you have to be aware of what the opposition are going to do against you.

“Just go out and enjoy the game? It doesn’t happen at this level, because enjoying the game is winning it.”

The Phoenix build-up for Sunday’s semi-final has been less than ideal, with six players away on international duty.

Tim Brown, Tony Lochhead, Leo Bertos and Ben Sigmund were with the All Whites in California for Thursday’s 0-2 loss to Mexico, while Andrew Durante and Jon McKain joined the Australian squad for their Asian Cup qualifier against Indonesia.

All will be back and available — barring injury — aside from McKain, who is suspended for a game following his red card against Perth.

Gould said the fractured lead-in was nothing new for the Phoenix.

“It’s not ideal, that’s the bottom line, but we’ve dealt with it before. We played against Melbourne early in the season when they were all travelling in from Bahrain and we coped, we went to Melbourne and drew 1-1,” he said.

“If mentally the boys are prepared, I’m sure physically they’ll drive themselves through, and there’ll be 35,000 that’ll help them along as well.”

The Phoenix go into the winner-takes-all semi-final with two distinct advantages — the 35,000 sell-out crowd and an 18-match unbeaten streak at their home ground. Gould, however, is wary of reading too much into the favourites label.

“It should give us confidence, but it doesn’t give us any guarantee,” he said.

“It gives you an advantage, but we’ve got to make sure we prepare exactly the same way, and we’re as detailed as we have been all season.

© AAP 2012

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